Liver-eater, Beast murmured to me, awake, her danger radar active.
Whatever it was, it wasn’t just a vamp. The term “rogue” wouldn’t do anymore, and until I figured out something better, liver-eater it was. It bothered me that Beast knew more about this thing than I did. Would this creature put Beast in danger from the cops?
I had an instant instinct to obscure the tracks, hide the creature’s trail—an instinct from Beast in survival mode. If I hid them, and the cops decided I had messed up a crime scene, I was going to have to start explaining, and that meant lying—lies that would eventually catch me up. So, against Beast’s better judgment, I left the tracks pristine and went to wait on the cops. First, I bypassed around the window where the rogue had entered. The screen was ripped and hanging. Shattered glass in jagged shards jutted from the bottom pane. Blood had dried on the broken ends. As I watched, a fly buzzed through. It didn’t come back out.
Stretched out in a lawn chair, distant enough from a fire ant hill to provide some safety, I pulled out the crumpled batch of property owner info Rick had given me. He had Googled up a map and drawn in the real estate, adding random notes on the taxpayers and owners on the bottom. The pages seemed to be compiled from several sites that collected personal information, most of which I used myself. On the map, the Jean Lafitte park and Bayou Segnette State Park were both colored in a verdant green, and until now, I hadn’t noticed how close they were to one another.
Every predator has its own territory/hunting range. Beast’s largest range had been over a hundred square miles. A large male mountain lion might have a territory of three hundred square miles. I guessed that a sabertooth might claim a proportionately larger range, and wondered if the park properties, as well as New Orleans city proper, fell within the liver-eater’s range.
Long-distance running is problematic for big cats. Aside from cheetahs, most cats are ambush predators, waiting for dinner to pass by and dropping onto it, maybe with a short sprint to finish it off. To avoid building up body heat, we seldom pursue prey at a dead run. Occasionally we are stalk ers, tracking prey by scent and print, but few of us ever run for any length of time.
The rogue had run an amazingly long distance last night. I remembered the sound of the shower running in the small house after the killing ended. Had the liver-eater needed to cool off? Had he taken a cold shower? Was that also part of the reason he slept underwater in the wooded lair, to stay cool?
On the map, I traced the distance between the vamp cemetery, the parks, and Aggie’s house. It was conceivable that all of it was part of the rogue’s hunting ground—and the French Quarter too. But I couldn’t guarantee that the map was drawn to scale; it might all be different from what I was thinking. I’d have to study it later. I folded the papers to the property owner info. A large tract of land bordering Jean Lafitte park was owned by Anna, the mayor’s wife—the woman who was sleeping with Rick and the liver-eater. I hadn’t noticed how much land had been put in Anna’s name. Goose bumps rose on my arms. Beast growled.
I pulled out the next sheet and found that ten property purchases had been made in the last year in Barataria, all single-family homes, most in the two hundred thousand bracket, on or near the waterfront. Many of the properties had been purchased by Arceneau Developments. Clan Arceneau? If so, why were vamps buying up property there?
I was studying the names when the cops showed up, an unmarked car pulling down the street, no crime-scene van in sight. But then, Jodi had only my claim that a crime had taken place. I refolded the papers and tucked them in my boot. I had a decision to make.
Jodi did the usual cop thing: knock on front door, walk around the house, knock on back door, check the outbuilding—which I hadn’t even noticed—look at the broken window with the blood on it, knock on neighbors’ doors, talk to the housewife across the street. My good ol’ buddy Officer Herbert followed in her wake, shooting me glances of hatred that made Beast want to toy with him. I had a feeling that, eventually, she would get her chance. Then Jodi and Herbert went in, guns drawn. After that, a lot of cops went in, some in CSI clothing.